Anthony Dourish

In movies, people are always hiding things inside of the water tanks of public toilets. It is the perfect place to hide something during a get-a-way provided you don't mind it getting wet or you have a good sturdy zip lock bag. This has prompted me to lift of the cover of any public toilets (using plenty of paper towels) I come across. Some day I will find something. Some day.

Ted made us a ceiling cat for our office.

I decided to ride to work today, it was nice to avoid the crazy drivers. I had not thought about it until now but to ride to work is 7.2 miles and driving to work is 13.2.






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Ted made us an all or nothing box. In our line of work, you need one.

moar funny pictures

I have been happily driving around in a 2002 Volkswagen Golf for about 6 years now and I had accumulated 91,000 miles on it. After a flood of repair costs for the usual things that break on a 90,000 mile car I decided to upgrade to a Mk5 GTI. My first thoughts were to save some money by getting newish care with a few 1000 miles on it. I quickly found that no one wants to part with their GTI's and that there are not many to be found for private sale and just as few for sale by a dealer. One eventually cropped up on carmax.com which I jumped at. Ted warned me not to go to carmax, stating that he had worked there some years ago. I ignored this advice and bought the car anyway. I took the car around to Ted's house to show him, at which point he noticed a strange sound while the car idled. I quickly took the car to Lindsey VW and they had one of their tech's come out to the car (that was decent of them). You can tell the look in a mechanics face when he spots something expensive. They did a test of the oil and explained that the cam chain adjusters were about to go on the car. I quickly took the car back to carmax and they then shipped it back to Lindsey VW. Wendy had to take her car to Lindsey the same day for a service and had a frank talk with the service manager where he explained that the car had clearly been hammered and worse it had not even had an oil change. Common sense kicked in after the normal should I let carmax fix it or just find another car. I then took the car back to carmax for refund just as my 5 day money back period was about to end.

I then took another trip to Lindsey VW and bought a new 2008 GTI and I am extremely happy with it. It cost a little more, but it is worth it to get some sleep at night.

So thanks to Ted and his keen ear for automotive sounds and sorry to Butch, I still owe you a beer since I was unable to sell you my old wheels.

A warning when buying a car from carmax. It has probably had no inspection and they will try and trick you into keeping the car longer than the 5 days. After that, you are stuck with it.

I looked at the window this morning to see a hungry hawk stalk a tasty plump heron.

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We use Serena PVCS as our version control system at work. It is version 8+ so you would think most of the bugs would be ironed out by now. Not so, it is still as bad as it ever was.
Here is an extract of a conversation I had with one of our developers who uses it.


Rick: I accidentally started a second instance of PVCS and couldn't get out of it. You know you can't click "cancel" at the login prompt, it goes into a death loop.
Rick: So I killed the instance in the Task Manager, and now I can't log back in, it says my password is invalid.
Rick: George: Add this to your no-doubt-bulging file on "Glaringly obvious bugs in PVCS". Perhaps in the "Did they even test this before releasing it?" section.
Rick: I can just imagine the meeting "What should we do if the password is wrong?" "I think we should stick the user in a loop he can never get out

While driving into DC Saturday night I hit a raccoon. I was traveling at about 45 - 50 mph and I spotted him running left to right of my car. It was dark but I saw him clearly, There was someone close behind me and possibly someone in the left lane so I had to choose hitting the raccoon. I am not happy about it but at the time I could not think of an alternative. I hit him with both wheels so at least I know he died quickly. I am also pleased that Wendy was in the back seat and did not see it happen.

Artistic recreation.



:(

I had a strange dream that a midget in an old red Honda Civic cut me off as I was pulling up to a stop light and I was not fast enough to stop so I hit him. The midget was angry. He wanted me to pay him cash since his car was old and keep it out of the insurance companies hands. I have to write this down in case it happens. Then we will know that I can see into the future.

This Christmas I visited Wendy's parents home where they hosted a nice family party. I had a good time this year, not sure why but I did. Wendy's uncle has has 6+ children that are mostly out of control now that her uncle has split up from his wife, this also amused me because they were ultra religious and now have seen the light. I was watching these kids go crazy waiting to be given gifts when one of them opens a present and screams "TRANSFORMER", then I hear his heart break as he discovers that it is in fact Transformers bubble bath. There is a huge industry for what I call satellite toys. Toys that no one really wants but they have images of the actual toy you wanted. Being from a poor family I was always given these non toys because they are much cheaper than being given the actual toy. It amused me to see someone else on the stinky end of these toys. They really should be banned.

Additional amusement came from Wendy's aunt Pat who told me the story of how one of trashy neighbors giant inflatable snow globes became untethered during a windy day and bounced in her path as she was driving down the road. Since she was driving her beater or drinking car as she called it she took great pleasure in ramming the snow globe.

Today I was curious why the flu virus seems to spread during the winter months and where it goes during the summer.

Short answer is.

1. Flu virus is more stable in colder air. 5C seems to be the optimal temperature for transmitting the flu virus.
2. Influenza A virus does not lie dormant during summer but migrates globally and mixes with other viral strains before returning to the Northern Hemisphere as a genetically different virus

This would explain why Virginia has been hit quite hard by the flu virus, the temperature has been around 5C lately.





http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/health/research/05flu.html?_r=1&em&ex=1197003600&en=eca6256038888f3d&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

http://www.topnews.in/flu-virus-migrates-globally-during-summer-season-22194

Place your bets now.



I don't know who invented "day time" cough medicine but hey want a good slapping. When I am sick I don't want to feel anything.

The last cup from a water cooler always tastes the best. You get a cup of water which is nice and you also have the satisfaction of knowing someone will try to get a cup of water after you and fail. Then they have to replace the water bottle. I enjoy this last cup so much that I made up a little song that goes something like o/~ The last cuuuup tastes the freeeeeshest ...... o/~ I like to sing this as I am pouring my self the last cup.

This morning I decided to find out what happened to be Dee lite (Lady Kier) of "Groovers in the heart". I was watching some youtube videos of her and she really is a good dancer.

1992 - Lady Kier. It was a 100% yes.



2007 - Lady Kier. Maybe? Obviously going back in time would be the best solution but I'd still consider it.



Also amusing, she has a Flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/59458068@N00/sets/

During crazy days at my work it is good to go to the distant and small bathrooms that no one visits. Shut the cubicle door, pull my jacket over my head and close my eyes for 20 minutes. Next time maybe I will take my ipod and play some rain music.

RedBull + ( 2 x PeppermintPatties) = ClimbingLevel.V4;

It is a little disturbing when two people get hurt rock climbing within minutes of each other. I watched one girl break her ankle (I hope it is just a bad sprain), the other girl I only heard the sound of a body hitting the mat.

Off topic: this made me snigger this morning. It is going to be one of those days.